Reaction in Washington
Later in the day Tokyo broadcast the news of the pending acceptance directly to the United States. Since Eastern War Time was thirteen hours behind Far Eastern Time, it was during the early hours of August 10 when the Japanese radio report was received. Consequently, the first intimation of a break came to officials as they lay in bed. James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, was awakened by an aide who informed him of the dramatic development. He dressed hurriedly and rushed to his office on Constitution Avenue. There his secretary told him that President Truman wanted him at the White House at 9:00 A.M. for discussions. The Navy Secretary hurried to the meeting.
Harry Truman greeted Forrestal warmly and showed him to a seat. A group of officials and aides joined him around the table as the President prepared to open the discussion. Three of them, together with Forrestal, formed an inner circle of advisors, a “war” council most directly concerned with operations on the diplomatic and military levels. All but one were holdovers from the preceding administration.
Forrestal himself had come to Washington in 1940 as Undersecretary of the Navy. He had left the presidency of a New York brokerage firm, Dillon, Reed, to become part of Roosevelt’s new look in the military sphere. When Navy Secretary Frank Knox died in 1944, Forrestal had accepted the top job in the department.
Forrestal’s rugged face was his trademark. His nose was spread and battered from catching too many punches in college boxing matches at Princeton. An intense man, he drove himself and others around him unmercifully. He worked well with Truman, though the President’s decision-making processes annoyed him. Recently he had crossed swords with Truman over a minor point. Slighted at not being invited to the Potsdam Conference, Forrestal had simply turned up unannounced at the Big Three sessions, thereby resolving the issue to his own satisfaction and Truman’s annoyance.
The pressures of his office always weighed heavily on him, so much so that in later years, as the first Secretary of Defense, Forrestal broke down under constant criticism by the press and lobbyists, and, in 1949, jumped to his death from a hospital window. But on August 10, 1945, he was ready to savor the victory and share in the planning for peace.
Admiral William D. Leahy, a veteran of fifty-two years of naval service, functioned as the President’s personal chief of staff. In his late seventies, the crusty old salt, nicknamed “Sandpaper,” tended toward blunt assertions and a cynical outlook. He was one of the few who had categorized the atomic project as “a silly brainstorm” that would never work. He also deplored its use as a weapon of war.
Leahy’s career mirrored the emergence of the United States Navy to a preeminent position in the world. At one time he served on the frigate Constellation. Later he served during the Boxer Rebellion and fought in World War I. In 1945, he helped guide the vast armada that ruled the oceans of the earth. A widower, the admiral was left with only two loves, tobacco and hard work. He smoked sixty cigarettes a day while exerting every ounce of energy toward helping the Chief Executive over the rough spots of the Presidency.
Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, was the last of the old guard. He had served the Government for many years. As Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover in 1931, he watched the growing challenge to world peace in Manchuria. His warnings to the League of Nations went virtually unheeded as European nations grappled with their own problems at home.
Stimson bridged the years between the old America of the nineteenth century and the awesome international giant of the mid-twentieth century. A patrician by birth, he grew up surrounded by the trappings of inherited wealth, then amassed another fortune as a Wall Street lawyer. He lived well. Fox hunting and deck tennis were his hobbies. He was a highly moral gentleman, an aristocrat dedicated to serving his nation. Though aloof and unbending, he tried nobly to project warmth to his aides and others. This mild, courtly man found himself responsible for a gigantic war machine which destroyed nations. It was he who decided that since “war is death,” the atomic bomb was a legitimate weapon to use on human beings.
The only Truman appointee in the room was the Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, from South Carolina. But for an ironic twist of fate, he might have been sitting in Truman’s chair that day. Positive that he would be Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944, Byrnes was stunned when Harry Truman was nominated at the convention. When Roosevelt died, Truman called Byrnes out of retirement to head the State Department. The nattily dressed Secretary worked well with the new President and had, in fact, just returned with him from Potsdam where they had faced the intransigent Russians for the first time.
United in their suspicions as to Soviet intentions, the two statesmen had returned to Washington on the seventh of August to face the swift onset of peace in the Far East. Three days later, in the cabinet room, they were confronted with a new dilemma. It was found in the wording of the Japanese message, specifically in the phrase injected by Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma:
The Japanese Government is ready to accept the terms enumerated in the joint declaration which was issued at Potsdam on July 26, 1945, by the heads of the Governments of the United States, Great Britain and China, and later subscribed to by the Soviet Government with an understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler.
The Japanese had brought into the open the problem of the Emperor’s future. Truman asked Stimson what he would do about the “conditional acceptance” aspect of the message. The Secretary reiterated his plea for retention of the Emperor. “Even if the question hadn’t been raised by the Japanese,” he said, “we would have to continue the Emperor ourselves under our command and supervision in order to get into surrender the many scattered armies of the Japanese.… Something like this use of the Emperor must be made in order to save us from a score of bloody Iwo Jimas and Okinawas all over China and the New Netherlands.” Admiral Leahy supported this view. Forrestal also concurred. At this time he was more concerned about Russia’s designs in the Far East. If keeping the Emperor would end the war quickly, he was in favor of it.
The council adjourned swiftly to await official notice from Japan. Byrnes and Stimson went to an anteroom to discuss the wording of a reply. There the Secretary of War mentioned an urgent request from General Marshall, who wanted Allied prisoners released as soon as possible and moved to some accessible area of Japan from which they could be flown out for medical treatment.
Stimson left the White House before 10:00 A.M. to go back to the War Department. Outside the building, large crowds had formed on Pennsylvania Avenue as rumors of peace swept through the streets. Washington—the entire United States—was ready to explode at the first official declaration of an end to the war.
James Byrnes returned to the White House shortly after noon with the official message from the Swiss Embassy. President Truman promptly called a full cabinet meeting for two o’clock. Here he outlined the text of the answer formulated by Byrnes and others and discussed methods of notifying the Allies of its contents in order to obtain their approval prior to dispatch of the reply by telegram to Japan.
Only the Russians were expected to cause trouble. Truman did not want them interfering in the government of the fallen nation. Wary after the joint rule instituted in Berlin and Vienna, the President wanted no part of Soviet “cooperation” in Japan. He specifically wanted MacArthur as the sole commander responsible to Allied controls.
By four o’clock in the afternoon notes had been sent to London, Chungking and Moscow. Work on the final draft of the answer to Japan continued into the night.
Britain and China agreed promptly to the terms. Predictably, Russia balked. When Ambassador Averell Harriman presented Truman’s message to Molotov in Moscow, the Russian stalled, then later recalled Harriman and told him that the Soviets would agree to the settlement with the condition that they participate in the Allied High Command. Harriman had been briefed by Truman at Potsdam on just such an eventuality, and despite Molotov’s insistence, he refused to transmit such a proposal to Washington. Minutes after he got back to his office at the American Embassy, he received a call from the Kremlin and was told there had been a misunderstanding: the Russians merely wished to be consulted on the choice of a Supreme Commander; they had not meant to imply that agreement on the choice was required. The USSR’s bluff had been called.
By the end of the hectic day of August 10, the last draft of the Byrnes statement replying to the Japanese was being readied for transmission.
In China, worried American officers worked over a secret plan. In July, General George Marshall had sent a cablegram from Washington expressing concern about Allied prisoners behind Japanese lines. To General Albert Wedemeyer and his aides in Chungking, Marshall entrusted the job of saving the prisoners in case of a sudden surrender.
This assignment was staggering. The prison camps were thousands of miles to the north and northeast. Chinese divisions could not possibly reach them. Tanks could not batter their way through the lines to effect lightning rescues. Some other way had to be found.
At dinner one night, Wedemeyer solicited opinions from staff members. Several ideas were broached, then rejected. Colonel Arthur Dobson, from Lincoln, Nebraska, finally suggested the possibility of sending in teams of parachutists who would confront the Japanese and demand access to the captives. He reasoned that the element of surprise might stun the enemy into inaction and prevent bloodshed.
Dobson’s idea was well received. At Kunming, the OSS had a base for clandestine activities. From it, some form of task force could be scraped together. Wedemeyer’s assistant, General George Olmstead, was given command of the special project. As the atomic bombs fell on Japan, he and his staff rushed to implement the “mercy missions.”
The China theater was an extraordinarily difficult arena of war. It had been that way since before Pearl Harbor, when the Flying Tigers under General Claire Chennault helped the Nationalist armies defy the Japanese invader. It had continued that way during the dark days of 1942 and 1943 when the Burma Road, lifeline to China from India, had been sealed off.
Conditions had improved after the Japanese were driven out of North Burma in 1944, and road traffic into China was resumed. Increased air transport over the Himalayas helped even more. Still, the Chinese command posed a continual problem to high officials in Washington.
The country was beset by factional strife. Though united against a common foe, the Japanese, both the Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communists, led by Mao Tse Tung, fought each other repeatedly. The Chiang government held the reins of power but the Reds lurked in the background. From their headquarters in the caves of Yenan in northwest China, Mao’s lieutenants broadcast about the excesses of the Nationalists and promised a “people’s government” after the Japanese had been thrown off the mainland. The charges hurt Chiang because they were based on fact.
In a nation that had not had a strong central government for centuries, the ruling class was riddled with corruption and greed. A bribe could win an official’s favor. A bribe could wean a general away from his loyalty to Chiang. The Japanese themselves employed such tactics to disrupt, confuse and subvert their foes. The Communists did the same.
When General Vinegar Joe Stilwell went to Chungking in 1944 to help Chiang organize the Chinese armies, he was disgusted with the situation. Contemptuous of the Chinese leader, whom he referred to as “The Peanut,” Stilwell told Washington that Chiang intended “to go on milking the United States for money and munitions.” Because he thought that the Communists would eventually win the allegiance of the peasants, he felt that America was supporting the wrong side. Stilwell did not last very long in China. He was recalled from what he termed “as merry a nest of gangsters” as one could find.
General Albert Wedemeyer came from Washington to heal the rupture. He managed to soothe Chiang and induce him to cooperate more fully in training a total of thirty-nine Chinese divisions for combat against the Japanese. By the summer of 1945, Wedemeyer had reversed a prevailing defeatist sentiment among Chinese generals and had embarked on the first phase of Operation Carbonado, a drive to the sea near Canton.
The Japanese now ruled a shrinking continental empire. Though capable of offering stern resistance to their enemies, they could not control the land mass of China. One and a half million troops in the field failed to stop constant harassment by guerrillas, Nationalist and Communist, who blew up bridges, seized towns, and terrorized individual units on patrol. The Japanese had won the big cities but not the countryside. Battle lines were fluid and porous, stretching over thousands of miles.
In this incredibly complex situation, American advisers, numbering nearly seventy thousand, strove to wage effective warfare. The latest message from the War Department concerning prisoners of war was therefore particularly unsettling. It seemed to ask the impossible.
Elsewhere, it was necessary to continue the business of war. General Leslie Groves called on General Marshall to discuss the next shipment of nuclear material to the battle zone. Finding him involved in conferences, Groves returned to his office and arbitrarily ordered a hold on delivery of plutonium and other vital bomb parts until further notice. Later in the day Marshall agreed with Groves’ action. A third bomb could be prepared for drop at any time if the Japanese did not surrender.
In Washington, a special alert had gone out from the Navy Department to all clerical personnel in the area. Full reports of a naval disaster in the western Pacific had just reached headquarters. On the moonlit night of July 30, tragedy had overtaken the cruiser Indianapolis. As it steamed toward Leyte after delivering part of the core of the Hiroshima bomb to scientists at Tinian, it moved past the periscope of the I-58, a large Japanese submarine homebound for the Inland Sea. Its captain, Hashimoto, quickly fired torpedoes into the side of the cruiser, which sank in moments. Hundreds of Americans spilled into the darkness and began floating on the tranquil ocean. The I-58 moved out of the area and proceeded toward Japan. On the surface of the Pacific, survivors waited for dawn and rescue.
Rescue did not come. Owing to an incredible lapse, authorities at Leyte did not take action when the Indianapolis failed to make an appearance. For days the sun beat mercilessly on the helpless sailors bobbing on the sea. They weakened gradually and lost hope as the countless hours went by without a friendly ship coming over the horizon. Men gave up. Some swam away toward imagined oases. Others simply fell asleep and sank from sight.
On the fourth day, a plane wandered over the pitiful remnants of the Indianapolis crew. By the time ships lifted survivors out of the water, over eight hundred officers and men had died. At least half could have been saved if prompt action had been taken.
On the tenth of August, mounting casualty lists from the Indianapolis poured into Washington. Telegrams were composed and dispatched across the nation as the Navy fought to notify the next of kin before peace was declared.
But plenty of time remained. On the other side of the international dateline, Tokyo seethed with unrest. The forces of opposition to surrender had rallied swiftly. Sakomizu, the Cabinet Secretary, was the first to feel the wrath of the angered military. Asleep in an armchair at Premier Suzuki’s residence, he was rudely awakened at seven o’clock by four young officers from the War Ministry, who had just heard about the message sent to Switzerland. They cornered the Secretary and demanded to know why the council had done such a thing. Sakomizu was outraged but knew that he must proceed cautiously. He decided that his best defense was a good offense, and shouted at them to get out. They refused. Then he walked into an adjoining room and sat down. The officers followed, but before they could continue the verbal abuse, Sakomizu ordered them to take off their ceremonial swords and leave them outside the house. At this point, the soldiers became flustered and walked out.
War Minister Anami slept for several hours after the meeting with the Emperor. He was exhausted by the strain of the past few days. At fifty-seven, Anami was in excellent health but his eyes were baggy from lack of rest and his body was leaden with fatigue. Yet at nine o’clock, he was in his office in the Ichigaya Heights War Ministry building, where the senior officers were assembled for a meeting.
Anami knew the temper of his men and spoke prudently: “I do not know what excuse to make to you, but since it is the Emperor’s decision, it cannot be helped.” There was no sound from the assembled officers. Anami continued: “The important thing is that the Army shall act in an organized manner. Individual feelings must be disregarded. Those among you who are dissatisfied and wish to stave it off will have to do it over Anami’s body.” Some officers broke out into protest at the remark. Anami waved them quiet. “This decision, however, was made on the condition that the upholding of our national polity [way of life] be guaranteed. Consequently, it does not mean that the war has ended. The Army must be prepared for either war or peace.” Grumbling erupted from the close-packed body of men. Anami dismissed them, and they turned back to their own sections to argue the situation.
Rebellion became a common topic in the corridors of the War Ministry. Anami had his hand on the pulse of the officer corps and realized that he was dealing with volatile men, who, if provoked, could overthrow the best-laid plans of the Government. The atomic bomb did not matter to these zealots, who still believed surrender a worse fate than death.
One of the plotters in the War Ministry was Colonel Masao Inaba. Sincerely convinced that it was important to maintain the spirits of the soldiers until such time as a surrender was actually consummated, Inaba composed a speech for broadcast to the troops overseas. His message urged continued vigilance and sustained opposition to the enemy.
Though he got approval for it from various senior officers, he could not reach General Anami, then engaged in discussions with cabinet officials. While Inaba waited for Anami to initial the document, two other officers came to his office and demanded that it be released in time for the evening radio news program. They found a copy of the speech in a wastebasket and began to rework it into still harsher terms. Inaba finally gave in to their urging and permitted them to take the strong declaration without Anami’s approval.
The War Minister was immediately placed in a most embarrassing position, for at this time he himself was helping to draft a statement of a different kind, intended for the civilian population. Hiroshi Shimomura, Chief of the Cabinet Information Board, had wanted to advise the masses that something was in the wind. Without actually telling them that surrender was being discussed, he wished to warn them of crucial developments to be announced soon. Anami was in agreement with this plan and helped to write the declaration.
Later, when Shimomura learned of the existence of the dangerous Army proclamation, he called Anami to ask just what he was trying to accomplish by attempting to broadcast an inflammatory message to the armed forces. When the War Minister was at a loss to explain, Shimomura immediately sensed that the general had been duped by his own men. Realizing that Anami might be killed if his subordinates were thwarted, he allowed the broadcast to be carried to the outermost areas of the Empire.
Throughout the Pacific, soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army heard their leader exhort them to “crush the enemy.” In Japan itself, civilians were exposed both to that and to Shimomura’s message about ominous developments in the near future. The contradictory statements only served to confuse the issue for the populace.
The civilian population of Japan was dying in ever-increasing numbers. Curtis Lemay had sent hundreds of B-29’s up the long path from far to the south to lend authenticity to the Allied message. High above darkened cities bomb bay doors opened and thousands of incendiaries cascaded down onto wooden homes and steel factories. Hundreds died in bed, in makeshift shelters all over Japan.
Though unaware of events unfolding in the Imperial Palace, the Japanese civilians had already had more than enough. In five short months the Twenty-first Bomber Command had changed day-to-day living in Japan to a bitter struggle for survival. In the same five months, the B-29’s had effectively paralyzed sixty-six metropolitan centers in the Home Islands. Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe—the names included the vital centers of Japanese war industry.
Air strikes had repeatedly concentrated on workers’ houses, where much of the decentralized war production system was based. Eight million people were homeless. Many workers had simply left their jobs and taken their families into the country to escape the bombers. Others crowded in with relatives or friends. Five or six families frequently shared three rooms. Hunger was a constant torture. The rice ration had been cut to almost a quarter of its prewar subsistence level, and fish, a staple, had become a luxury because boats could not venture far enough or often enough into the enemy-dominated waters. Clothing materials were almost unavailable and the average citizen patched and repatched what remained of his wardrobe.
Social deterioration kept pace with economic decay. The foundations of the traditionally strong family unit were eroded as parents abandoned children to the public care. Because use of the cherished public baths was sharply curtailed, owing to air raids and fuel rationing, for the first time in their lives the normally fastidious Japanese stank.
Even the rites for burial were affected. Almost no lumber was available for coffins used to transport the dead to crematoriums.
Overriding all these concerns was fear. The B-29’s and the planes from the carriers dominated the people’s every movement. The civilian in Japan was on the edge of desperation.
Lieutenant Marcus McDilda had become a Very Important Person to the Japanese Secret Police. After nearly twenty-four hours of questioning, he had been taken to a plane and flown with another American prisoner to Tokyo. On the morning of August 10, McDilda was ushered into a room at Kempei Tai headquarters. Seated at a desk was a Japanese civilian, wearing a pin-stripe shirt and sipping tea. He was very cordial to the American pilot and served some tea to him. “I am a graduate of CCNY College,” he told McDilda, “and most interested in your story about the atomic bomb.” McDilda repeated his lie.
After several minutes, the Japanese official knew that Marcus McDilda had committed a hoax, that he knew nothing at all about nuclear fission. When McDilda said that he had been trying to tell that to his interrogators in Osaka, the Japanese laughed. After more friendly conversation, McDilda was taken to a cell and given some food. The beatings ceased.